Listening to Bruce at Belmont

Streaming Springsteen, April 11, 2023

When I found out that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would be performing almost in my neighborhood, at the UBS Arena at Belmont Park, I gave some thought to going. Not much, but a little.

I've seen Springsteen dozens of times since 1973, every tour, into the mid-1990s, from that now legendary run at tiny upstairs at Max's Kansas City, with Bob Marley & the Wailers as the opening act. The last time was probably 2006. My Billboard buddy Thom Duffy (did you know I was third string copy editor at Billboard from 2004-2009? I often forget) had an extra ticket (we paid about $100 for great seats) for the "Seeger Sessions" show at Madison Square Garden.

I really liked that album and the show, and I took two memories from it. One was that the crowd looked much older than I had last remembered; in other words, people my age. The other was that there was one guy--one--who could be spotted lighting a joint. And I thought it was inappropriate, as the city had only recently (2003) passed the Clean Air Act, which banned smoking in public spaces. I know those who still indulge bless creation of edible THC, which takes smoke out of the equation.

I'm going to sidestep the Springsteen team's unapologetic embrace of "dynamic pricing," which is like a wheel of fortune at Jersey Shore carnival. You pay what the market says a ticket is worth at the moment you get through to Ticketmaster after a long hold: a colleague told me by the time his turn came up, it was $600 a ticket. And I'm sure many people paid much more than that: Paying subscribers, feel free to comment.

But last weekend I listened to the entire April 11 Belmont UBS Arena show. The concert streaming service nugs.net posts soundboard-quality live shows, sometimes the day after the show. I signed up for a 30-day free trial ($12.99 a month after). There are numerous shows from this Springsteen tour, as well as the usual array of popular jam bands, whose audiences like to collect and share sets: Umphrey's McGee, Widespread Panic, String Cheese Incident, and the band from that cohort that interests me most: Goose, which I like enough to almost see in Port Chester, NY back in March. I almost go to a lot of concerts. I go to almost none. Been there, done that, including getting heavy Covid days after a Nick Lowe show in Port Washington, L. I., last June. There are also some videos available to subscribers, and if I wasn't writing, I might be watching Miles Davis in Munich, 1987 on nugs.net.

The Springsteen April 11 show was, to quote a title from another Jersey band, the Smithereens, a mix of beauty and sadness. The sadness was drawn out in a story, as only Springsteen can tell it, in the lead-in to the song "Last Man Standing." The song, from gorgeous, elegiac Letter to You (2020), is tribute to his late friend George, "snakeskin vest and sharkskin suit," who hired the 15-year-old Springsteen for his band in 1965. If you're anywhere near Springsteen's age (at 73, he is about six weeks older than I am), you know what he means when he talks about there now being a lot more yesterdays and goodbyes. It made my mascara run.

But the full show had all the exuberance, joy, and affirmation of life people seek from a Springsteen show: It opened with "No Surrender." I don't recall a more unusual setlist, yet completely seamless. Early, there were more of the newer songs from Letter to You, including the title song, an unapologetic anachronism: Who writes letters anymore? (Unless they are condolence letters, which should be handwritten.) "Ghosts," the second song, is testimony that acknowledges the grace he has been given, the responsibility he feels to his rock 'n' roll forebears: "I shoulder your Les Paul and finger the fretboard/I make my vows to those who've come before."

There are no songs from the debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., but three from its immediate successor, also from 1973, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. I can't remember the last time I heard the song "The E Street Shuffle," which had an arrangement like "Superfly" or "Shaft," in concert. But the two others have been crowd-pleasers, on and off for decades: the frequent showpiece "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)," and the heartbeat of the early days, "Kitty's Back," which after 50 years still has its snap.

But there's more to "Kitty's Back." In its 13 minutes, there's room to feature solos from many of the players in this Big Band. I mean Big Band literally: including Bruce, there were 18 performers on that stage, and "Kitty's Back" gave them room to move. The arrangement reminded me of Count Basie, who was born in Red Bank, NJ, the heart of Springsteen territory, a small city on the upswing with the Count Basie Arts Center as a cultural hub. (The late Clarence Clemons' band was called the Red Bank Rockers.) In addition to Clarence's nephew Jake Clemons starring on tenor sax, there are four more horn players, as well as organ player Charlie Giordano, a full-time E Street Band member who replaced the late Danny Federici. When the players finished taking their star turns, I half expected Jimmy Rushing or Joe Williams to step up to finish "Kitty's Back." Spectacular music.

I could be wrong, but I didn't notice any songs from The River, or Nebraska, and only "Prove It All Night" from Darkness at the Edge of Town. The one song from Springsteen's recent album of soul covers was the best choice: "Night Shift."

Among what to me were the rarities: "Lucky Town," with which the full band was so much better than version on the 1992 solo album. And "Wrecking Ball," the title song from the 2012 album which received mixed reviews, still seems unclear in its message: jobs and progress, or environmental destruction?

The message of oppression and claustrophobia was undeniable in Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped," which such a distinctive arrangement there's little trace of reggae, not that there ever was.

"Trapped" as far as I can tell, was the only cover, which came as a surprise, having grown up on encores featuring "Devil With a Blue Dress" and the Detroit medley, and euphoric party songs like Gary "U.S. Bonds' "Quarter to Three."

The closing song of the main set, "Thunder Road," led to an encore that clocks in at about 40 minutes. Forty minutes! There's nothing perfunctory about these encores, which is why it's always good to hang around until the end. But instead of covers, it was all Springsteen classics: "Born in the U.S.A." and "Born to Run"; "Glory Days," "Dancing in the Dark," and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out."

Springsteen signals when the show is really over, when he accompanies himself on guitar and harmonica for an acoustic "I'll See You in My Dreams," also from Ghosts. It was dedicated to Harry Chapin and the feed-the-hungry organization he started, "Long Island Cares." Said Bruce: "They're good people on the front lines, doing God's work." In his own way, as we all get older, the more Springsteen seems to understand he's doing his own version of the same thing.